Things don’t always go to plan; we don’t always get what we want. Like the woman sleeping upstairs in my son’s bedroom. I did not want her here. But I knew for sure that everything was going to work out because I had before me exactly what I required to make sure my son never wanted to go within a mile of that deceitful woman ever again.

18

DAISY

The next two days passed in a haze. I knew I spoke very little because when I did my lips were cracked and my throat was dry. I was sleeping a lot. One day rolled into the next. Each time I woke I would ask Ben the same thing. Was it a dream?

‘No, my darling,’ he would tell me as he stroked my head and I would feel my stomach tighten and my toes curl as a rush of adrenaline hurtled though my body. I would look at Ben – the blame didn’t lie with him but there he was, the only face I could see, the closest person to me, and I felt an overwhelming desire to lash out. But it was fleeting before once again exhaustion overtook me.

Ben seemed to be carefully keeping Annie away. I could sense her lurking in a doorway and then I would hear tense whispers as her shadow followed her footsteps away.

He had soldiered on without me these last few days – I knew he had spoken to Patrick several times and it was Ben who had broken the news to him. I tried to imagine Patrick’s crumpled face when he realised he would never see his beloved Eve breathing, laughing again. Even now, just a few days later, the regret at not telling Patrick myself, along with all the other tiers of guilt imbedded within me, lay heavy on my chest.

On Monday the police arrived at the house. Ben had been lying beside me – the position he had adopted since we arrived – waiting to perform a duty for me however small. Last night Annie had given me some tablets. They were just what I needed. I took one, and I had taken another an hour ago. I wanted to prolong this feeling of nothingness that they provided me with. We both heard the crunch of car tyres on the gravel as I was hovering between sleep and consciousness. Ben swung himself from the bed in one swift flawless movement.

‘Coppers are here, Mum,’ I heard Ben say at the bedroom door as Annie came scurrying past.

‘What? Why?’

‘To speak to Daisy. They called me yesterday.’

Annie made her way aggressively into the dark room and pulled back the curtains, an offensive stream of light flooded in. I let out a groan and began to sit up.

‘Mum, what the… for Christ’s sake.’ Ben took Annie firmly by the arm and escorted her from the room then half-kicked the door to and approached the bed.

‘You don’t need to get up – you don’t need to do this today. I can turn them away,’ Ben said.